UK may store all phone calls and emails

The UK government is considering a massive database to store every
person's emails, phone calls, text messages and internet use. The plan
was suggested as a tool to help security forces tackling crime and
terrorism.

At
the moment, records of phone calls and text messages are kept for up to
12 months by telecoms companies, in compliance with a European Union anti-terrorism directive.

But a new proposal
by the UK Home Office would see internet service providers (ISPs) and
telecoms companies handing over records containing billions of emails
as well as Internet usage and voice-over-Internet calls, media reports
said on Tuesday.

Police
and security services would only be granted access to the information
after seeking permission from the courts. The UK was this year labelled
an "endemic surveillance society" by a study of privacy protections worldwide.

Playing catchupThe Home Office said the database could help catch up with rapid changes in communication methods during the past 15 years.

"The
changes to the way we communicate, due particularly to the internet
revolution, will increasingly undermine our current capabilities to
obtain communications data and use it to protect the public," it said
in a statement.

"To
ensure that our public authorities and law enforcement agencies can
continue to use this valuable tool, the government is planning to bring
forward the Communications Data Bill." The draft bill is expected to be
released later in the year, but the plan has yet to be discussed by
ministers.

Phone calls would not be recorded in full, but the phone numbers involved and the duration of each call would be logged.

Secret recordsIn 2006, the US National Security Agency was found to be secretly keeping billions of such records.
Experts say such records can reveal detailed information about callers'
lives, but that such analysis is unproven as a way to reliably track
and catch criminals.

Critics of the new plan have raised concerns about privacy. Jonathan Bamford, Assistant Information Commissioner at the UK government's regulatory office
for data storage, use and privacy said: "We are not aware of any
justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and
internet records. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

Opponents also pointed to the UK government's recent track record on large databases. A health service database
that is the world's biggest civil IT project has incurred large budget
overruns and delays, while a recent security breach saw the whole
nation's child benefit records lost in the post.